What the Year's Best Sci-Fi Movie em /em Has to Say About Asian Identity and Adoption

Since long before Philip K. Dick wondered if androids dream of electric sheep, science fiction writers have used artificial life as a means to ponder what it means to be human. As a "cultural techno" purchased by an American couple, a white father (Colin Farrell) and Black mother (Jodie Turner-Smith), his job is to impart a sense of Asian identity to their adopted Chinese daughter (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), a purpose for which his memory banks have been filled with "fun facts" about ancient traditions of horticulture and tea-drinking. But Yang (Justin H. Min) finds himself wondering, right up to the edges of what his programming will allow, whether possessing that knowledge is the same as being a part of the culture it describes. He never questioned whether he was human, another character says of Yang, but "he did question if he was Chinese." After Yang's writer-director is surrounded by plenty of questions himself.